Jennifer Smith: Welcome to You're Not Crazy. It's Perimenopause. If you're a woman over 40 and feeling more anxious, not sleeping well, or disconnected from your body, this podcast is for you. I'm your host, Jenny Smith, Functional Medicine Health Coach, here to help you understand what the heck is happening in Perimenopause. Each week, we're diving into real-life conversations about how our changing hormones impact anxiety, sleep, and stress. And I'll share simple strategies to help you feel normal again. So grab a cup of tea or beverage of choice, get comfy, and let's dive in. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back. Today we are talking about stress, managing our stress. So I've I've walked you through the framework that I take women through on the hormone reset project. That's my signature program that helps women reduce anxiety, manage mood swings, really just helping them feel normal again and perimenopause. And we talked about nutrition, sleep, intermittent fasting, lifting weights, building muscle. And today we are talking about calming the chaos. This episode is timely because I just got back from a three day retreat in Sedona. Sedona is only two hours away from me, which is wonderful because it's not a long drive to go into The peaceful, beautiful desert landscape of the red rocks that is Sedona. If you've never been, it is a beautiful, beautiful, magical place. So I am turning 50 next week and I wanted to do something special for me. My husband was like, What do you want to do for your birthday? Do you want a party? Do you want, you know, what do you want? And and we can plan it. And So interesting because when I turned 40, I was all about let's go on a cruise, let's go on a boost cruise and party and have fun. And now that I'm turning 50, I am going in the complete opposite of that kind of activity as far as an event for celebration. Don't get me wrong, the boost cruise was a great time and I would love to do one of those again. But because I don't booze so much anymore, because my body really can't handle that. I really thrive on something more slower pace and more nurturing and relaxing. And so I decided to go on this three day relaxation meditation retreat in Sedona. A friend of mine had told me about this place. It's called the Sedona Mago Retreat Center. And she went and told me wonderful things about it. And I had been researching it and On their website for, you know, so many hours thinking, is this the right thing for me? Is this the right thing for me? And I had been wanting to do it for so long that I decided to give myself this retreat for me to celebrate my 50th birthday. And it was such a wonderful experience that I highly recommend that any woman who is feeling a lot of pressure of the day-to-day lives of and just feeling like we are so On all the time, and people are needing us, and with work and demands of life and responsibilities, and just feeling like you need a break, then something like getting away by yourself might just be what you need. I went to Sedona to really just disconnect from the noise and to get out of my comfort zone a little bit. I have never taken a trip on my own before. I've I've traveled by myself, but I've always met up with somebody, a friend, a family member. I had never gone somewhere by myself and didn't know anyone and was gonna spend three days with strangers. So this was really cool and really proud of myself because it's not something that I probably would have done 10 years ago or would have sounded like a good time to go somewhere by myself. And it's just so interesting as we change and we evolve as we get older. We tend to do more reflecting on our life. And I think that's a good thing for us to kind of slow down and just really check in with ourselves and find out like what is it that we really want? What what do we need right now? I want to start off by sharing The arrival experience. Sedona is so close to me, so I was able to drive. However, I did not know that it was so far off the beaten path that I should have rented a Jeep or taken my husband's car because I drive a little sedan with that seemed like baby tires. And when I got onto this dirt road, I thought, ⁓ my gosh, am I gonna make it okay without popping a tire? It was so rocky, so bumpy. But alas, I made it there safely and my car intact. When I got there, right away, I can just sense the energy of peacefulness. It was quiet, the beautiful landscape. There is nothing like it. Like I had said, Sedona is one of a kind. There is a reason why it's one of the most popular tourist destinations in the United States. There were waterfalls, red rocks, ⁓ they have a healing lake. And you know, once I checked into my room, I was able to explore the property before I went to dinner. And did I mention how strange it was to be s alone and it was so quiet? I could not believe it felt like I had this place to myself. And I felt safe because I knew I was on property that was maintained and the trails were safe and they have like wild javelinas. We have we have javelinas here in Arizona and the attendant who checked me in said, Be aware of javelinas. They are wild. They're not friendly. If you see them go the other way. And other than that, it just felt so peaceful. Like I just didn't worry. I didn't even really worry about the javelinas. Because especially he said, that they're used to people because they host hundreds of people every year because they have various retreats at this location. And so it just was really exciting to be there and knowing that I would have the next two days by myself. And when I got there, I met two ladies who were in the room next to me and they were traveling on a girls trip and they decided to do Sedona Mago just for fun. And they thought, you know, why not? Let's do something together. And they were also turning 50 that year. And so it's just really cool to meet people and find out like, hey, what brought you here? And and many of the women that I met were there alone. And I think this might be like my new favorite thing is to occasionally go on a trip by myself. My husband was super supportive. My kids are older now and it makes it easier to get away. My daughter drives and my son gets himself to school, gets himself up and ready and and off to school. So it's easier for me to get away. I know that it's not always possible. For women to get away when they have so much responsibilities. However, if it's something that you really want, there is a way. I encourage you that if you are looking to get some alone time and do some kind of solo getaway, I highly, highly a hundred percent recommend. Okay. I started off exploring the property and then I had went to dinner and it was all delicious food off the farm that they have on property. And it's buffet style. You gather, you get your food and you go sit down. So I ended up sitting and having dinner by myself. I told myself that I wasn't gonna use my phone. I was excited that Wi-Fi didn't really work well on this property. However, I was disappointed that it worked really well. So it was tempting to be on my phone and I cut down on phone usage quite a bit. However, I still was on my phone on on the internet. But during Dinner, I did not get on my phone. I just kind of looked around and smiled. And you can tell that people had been there for a couple days and they made friends and they were all talking. So as we were coming in, our small group for the retreat, other retreaters were getting ready to head out, like they were finishing up their retreat. It was really cool to kind of see the friendships that were made with. other groups at tables. We ended up meeting as a group that night for our first session and there were five of us, which was awesome because I love small intimate groups. I think it makes it easier to open up and to connect. And then you get one on more one on one time with the teachers. We spent some time learning about stress and how to move our body when we are stressed and that we are all energy That food is energy and how we fuel our body matters. It is responsible for our cellular health, our tissue repair, the energy that we have. Food feeds that and how we move our body. If we don't move our body, we have stagnant energy, and that can show up in illness, sickness, injuries in the body. So it was a really great introduction to what we would be doing and spending some time really. Connecting with our body, so many of us are so disconnected from our body that we don't really take the time to slow down and connect. And that if there is anything that I learned from this retreat, the highlight of what I learned is that we need to slow down and listen to our body. Our body speaks to us. And our body is a tool to fulfill our purpose here on earth in our life. And that we are here temporarily, we won't be here forever. Our body will eventually die. And that our soul goes on. And what are we gonna do while we're here on this earth? And how are we gonna care for our body and support our body? It was an aha for me to hear the master teacher talk about that. Master Daniel, he was amazing. ⁓ there was Master Daniel and Master Yoon. I learned qigong. Exercises and just learning to smile more and how to care for my body in a way that releases stress. So I really want to share some of the things that I learned with you. And I want to talk to you a little bit about how it's so important in perimenopause, into menopause, how we manage our stress. Because in perimenopause, Going into menopause, our ovaries retire. Our ovaries are responsible for making our hormones and they retire as we're going through the transition into menopause. When that happens, then our adrenal glands take over our hormone production. Our adrenal glands are our stress glands. They sit on top of our kidneys and they produce our hormones. And if you are stressed and you're pumping out cortisol and you're dealing with high cortisol, then you're going to be depleted and feel depleted a lot. Easier than you were in your 20s and 30s. Your body literally needs to slow down and it needs to relax more and handle the stress in a way that you prioritize it. At my time in this retreat, there was a small group of us, and I noticed that many of us are dealing with emotional exhaustion, grief, stress, and years of holding things in. And when we hold things in, It tends to show up in physical ailments in our body, whether it's illness, injury, pain. I showed up to this retreat in a lot of pain. And I think it's because of just the amount of stress that I had been under. And I had talked about this in the previous podcast. My body was dealing with a lot of pain, especially like in my shoulders and just feeling really tight in my shoulders and my neck. And Master Daniel said that we our body speaks to us. It's very intelligent and it holds the wisdom of what's going on in our lives. And one of the ways that we can ease pain in our body is to move it and to move the energy around in our body. And he showed us ways to do that. I'm not gonna get into too much of that, but one of the ways that he showed us how to move energy, stagnant energy that's in our body is stretching. And I learned some wonderful stretches that I planned to implement in my day-to-day routine. Because I can tell you by the time I left the retreat, I was feeling way less pain, even though I was not comfortable in the beds. I am a soft mattress sleeper and this was more like firm mattress and I I was not comfortable. Even that, I still had less pain when I left than when I arrived. And on day two, it was an all-day retreat. We had a lot of time to ourselves. We had breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And then we had like an hour in between to do what we wanted to do, whether it was walking the property, journaling, going to our room, if we had to do anything personal. So we had a lot of free time. That day, we spent most of the time learning about how to move our bodies to release stress. We went out on a nature walk and explored the property and talked about how when we are one with nature that our body literally calms down. And our teacher, Master Yoon, said, just feel the breeze and feel nature on your body. Like we are one with nature. If you know anything about Qigong, it is an ancient Chinese wellness system of like slow, flowy movements, deep breathing, and focused intent to balance our energy. And they taught us some moves, some qigong moves. And when we were outside, Master Yoon was walking so slow and I thought, what is she doing? When I say she was walking so slow, very slow. And it was uncomfortable for me. And then I realized when we came back into our our training room, because we talked about our experience being out in nature, I was like, they were talking about Qigong and just being able to slow down, slowing down our walking, slowing down our activities, being intentional with food and eating. How many of us actually sit down and slow down and breathe while we're eating our food without distraction? How many of us are eating in the car, on our computers, on our phones, at our desk? And They reminded us how important it is to break from that and go slow so that your body has time to relax and process it. And especially with eating, it just helps your digestion when you are moving more slowly and you're eating in a more mindful state. And I have a story to tell you about this because there's a lesson in almost everything that happens in our lives. Anything stressful. There is a lesson to be learned. So I'm jumping ahead here, but the day that I left, I took advantage of being on the property. This is day three. So we did our final session with our masters and talked about how we were gonna carry forth the lessons that we learned during our retreat, how we were gonna be more intentional and pause and listen to our body and really just work with moving energy so that we're not feeling stagnant and stuck and dealing with any kind of pain. So we were talking about like how we were going to balance going forward. And after that last session, I went and explored the property and I went to this beautiful place where I can overlook and see all of the red rocks in Sedona. And I took some time to journal on my experience in the day and what I had planned on taking with me going forward, what I was going to do. And then I checked out and I got in my car and I was headed home. Which should have taken a little over two hours. And before I got back on the paved road, because getting to the retreat, you're it's about like twenty miles, I think, of dirt road. And as I start to drive along and I'm getting closer, my tire light goes on and I'm like, ⁓ Whoa. And then it just I noticed that the pressure was going down really fast. So I knew I was getting a flat. I was able to get on the paved road and pull over to the side into a parking lot. And thankfully I have triple A, which is roadside assistance that you pay for. And I called them. A guy came out, changed the tire and put the spare on and I told him, Can I get all the way home with this? And He said, Yes, but you're gonna have to go fifty miles an hour or less because this tire, you can't go more than that. And I thought, ⁓ my gosh, that's gonna be the longest drive home. And the speed limit here in Arizona is 75 miles per hour on the highways. And so I ended up finding a tire shop that I go to where I live, up there where I was at, and they didn't have my size tire. And they tried to call another tire store and they didn't have my size tire. So I just said Forget it. I'm just gonna drive on the highway with my hazards on. So it took me four hours to get home. Not not just because I was going so slow, but because I hit traffic. I had to stop off to go to the bathroom. I ended up taking a longer detour way home by the time I got to the tire shop. So it was four hours to get from the res the retreat to retreat center to my house, which should have taken two hours. And I thought, okay, it's okay. It could be worse. It could be worse. Nothing is going to ruin my zen peaceful feeling that I have in my body from being on this retreat. And then I was like, ⁓ my gosh, a light bulb went off. Lesson learned. Slow down. I had to literally slow down my ride home. And what was beautiful about this ride home is that I was able to call one of my best friends. and talk to her for over an hour. We don't always get to talk much, and I was able to catch up with her. And so that was nice. And she prayed for me. She prayed that I got home safely. And then I called some other family members that I hadn't talked to. So I was able to slow down and talk to them and catch up. And I got there safely and got my new tire and I'm I'm good. So there's lessons in everything. That we experience in life, and oftentimes stress is what we perceive it to be. Our perception can make things more stressful. And one of the things that Master Yoon had mentioned, she said, when you see a person or an object or anything, any situation, do you think negative first or do you think positive? And I thought, hmm, that's interesting because. I would say it's pretty mixed. It depends. I mean, I do have some preconceived judgments with certain things and certain situations, but it was a good lesson in that there is beauty in everything. And there is beauty and positive aspects of everything that we go through, every hardship. And if we just pause and take a second to identify that, that will shift the chemistry in our body. And that's really ultimately what we want. We want to keep stress low. Cause stress does not do us any good. It causes us so much pain and it will catch up with us. It shows up in illness, it shows up in relationships, it shows up in our body, and we hold that tension and it leads to more negatives than it does any positives. Another thing too that I learned about myself on this retreat, it was ⁓ an exercise of really just kind of going within, going deep within and just learning more about who I am and and what it how I want to show up in this world and what I want to do, ⁓ what my purpose is and why I want to have a healthy body and why I want to take care of my body is to really support and heal other people on this earth who are struggling. Because I know personally what it's like to struggle. And it was so funny because Master Yoon asked us when we were outside on our nature walk. She said, Do you have trauma? Do any of you have trauma? And I looked at my friend next to me and I said, I think if we're human, we have traumas. And we do. There is not one person that leaves this world unscathed without any kind of hardships, traumas, anything in their life that has been challenging, devastating, upsetting. And what really spoke to me is that so many of us, ⁓ so many women especially stay quiet about it. We don't speak up, we don't ask for what we need, we suppress things to keep the peace, we don't want to bother other people because we're the caretakers, so we don't want to be a burden to anyone else. I resonate with that so much. Like that's personally what showed up for me is that I am someone who doesn't always authentically speak what I need and what I want and being worried about what others will think and hurting feelings or putting other people out. And that if we don't release the tension and those feelings, then it stays inside of us and it impacts our energy, our mood, our relationships. And so we spend so much energy kind of keeping that down and suppressing that when we could take that energy and and share it and be able to release it in ways with ⁓ talking about it, asking for help, moving our body, getting outside. And one of the things that I think that so many of us don't Do is say no when when we want to. We say yes because we think we have to, or we don't want to ruffle any feathers. And we really what we really want to say is no. And I was talking to a couple of the ladies on the retreat who were my age. One of them is struggling with insomnia really bad. And I was explaining to them about how We women as we go through cycles, you know, in our twenties, we're vibrant, we're healthy, we're energetic, we're on a mission to mingle and and find our partners so that we can reproduce and then we have children and then we start to go through not all of us have children, but many of us we are women are designed to have children, so our hormones kind of go through that cycle. And when we get into the transition into menopause. We are still like we're our hormones are dropping, they're declining. And remember, our adrenal glands now are taking over and we can't handle stress like we used to. But our society and our modern day society does not recognize that we are in this era of our life where we should be resting more. And we're not, because we still have full-time jobs and we are having kids later. So we're still raising children and we're Taking them to soccer and we're part of the PTO and having to manage all the the permission slips and going to talking to the teachers and managing the doctor's appointments and getting food on the table and doing the laundry and making sure the house is cleaned and all the things. And then we have to find time to take care of ourselves and all of that. And so when I said that to them, it was like, huh. Yeah, that makes sense. We should be slowing down. Wouldn't it be so nice if we could just slow down? Thank you so much for sharing that. That's what they said to me. Because they don't hear that. Nobody tells them that. That it's okay to rest. Rest is productive. Your body needs it. Your body asks for it. The second full day of the retreat, by the end of the night, Master Yoon had us like almost dancing. I'm ⁓ we were jumping up and down, bouncing all around, and it was fun. It was like a dance party. It was so fun. And afterwards she goes, How do you feel? And I said, I feel tired. And she goes, You do? And I said, I feel really tired. And she goes, Your body is telling you that you need rest. And I said, Yeah, I really do. All of those exercises that she was teaching us and and showing us and and Master Daniel were showing us are supposed to energize us. But I think I'd just been kind of going and going and going and going that I I'm just like depleted. And and she said, You need to rest. And I was like, Thank you for giving me the permission. To just rest. And I want to give you that permission. If it's something that you're longing for and you feel like your body needs, give yourself permission to rest. If you feel like you can't, because you have so much on your plate, ask for help. Take a mental health day from work. Just say, I I'm not feeling good. I need a I need a day of R<unk>R. Go outside. Let the wind kiss your face. Smell the flowers outside. Be present. with your body. Sit still and close your eyes. And what do you feel in your body? Do you have any pain or soreness in your body? If you do, it's your body speaking to you, letting you know that it needs a little bit more TLC, tender loving care. And I left that retreat in way less pain than when I got there. It was just what I needed. It didn't take long to meet new friends. We were all there Different reasons, but very similar journeys. It was so it was just so cool to to have this experience by myself. I ha I made new friends, but I also had a lot of alone time to just sit with me and just not have to worry about anyone else's timeline. So I challenge you as you go forward in the next couple weeks. We're in the summer months and or or getting into the summer months. Here in the US, I know I have some people listening in Australia and you're on the other side of the world, so I know our seasons are a little different. But in June in the US, we are heading into summer and it gets very busy with kids being home and vacations and traveling and being okay with saying no to the things that you don't want to do. That is what I've always encouraged women to do is say no to To what doesn't fill your cup. There are things that you can't say no to, and I understand that. Jobs, you know, if you have a job you don't like, but it's money that pays your bills, you can't necessarily say no to that. I understand. But saying no to things that if you just don't have the energy for and if you can not do it, to say no. So if someone asks you, would you be willing to watch my dog this weekend? And if it's an immediate no, Listen to your gut. I was sick last week and my husband was super, super helpful with getting my son to his practices and things like that. And my son had a a late football game and I just wanted to rest to recover. And I said no. And I think I shared about this in the last episode. I said no. And I and I felt a little bit guilty about it because I am always at his games. And I told him I said you know, I'm really sorry, but I'm just not feeling well. I need to sleep to get rest because I'm going on this retreat and I wanted to be well for it. And he was completely understanding and he said, Mom, it's fine. And I missed it. I always want to be there, but I needed the rest more. I listened to my body and because my husband was supportive, I was able to rest. And maybe you don't have a supportive partner or maybe you don't have a partner. Maybe you have a friend that you can connect with and ask for help and just let them know, hey, I I need this. Can you can you help me? Can you support me? Or hey, you know, I I am like so exhausted tonight. Would you be willing to take so and so to practice or to their game or whatever it might be? I challenge you to say no more and to ask for help. And you don't need permission to do something for yourself. What good are you if you are not cared for? You can't care for your loved ones if you are not well And cared for. You've got to take care of yourself first in order to take care of the people that you love. So, what are some things that you can do? You know, not everyone needs to go on a retreat to get this kind of experience. This for me was just something different, something out of my comfort zone that paid off in more ways than I ever could have imagined. And what I bring from that experience is just Disconnecting from technology when I can, really being intentional about the food that I'm eating, not rushing it, taking time to sit and be thankful for the food that I'm putting in my body. What is this food doing for me? Is it going to be nourishing me or will it be adding more stress to my body? And when we're talking about processed foods, our body doesn't recognize processed foods as food. So it Can't really use it. It's like empty calories. And sometimes it it's not any benefit to your body and it's actually a detriment. So if you can get into more whole real foods and being intentional about feeding your body in a way that's gonna support you and give you the energy that you need to live your purpose, to live your life, to feel good and to have the energy to do what you want to do and to hopefully be pain-free. I want to give you a few ideas of what you can do without having to go on a retreat to calm your body, to ease stress. The first thing, and I highly recommend, is just breathing. Just really taking time to like pause from your day a few times throughout the day when you're feeling a little bit more overwhelmed and stressed. To stop and take in some big deep breaths. Just take in like inhale for four, hold for four, exhale for four. Hold for four. If you inhale for a count of four and you hold your breath for a count of four and exhale for a count of four and you do that two or three times, you're gonna immediately feel your body begin to calm down. It's nature's relaxation pill. It's our body's built-in relaxation modality, is breath work. And so many of us are. We're like breathing sh shallow, we're breathing quickly, we don't realize that we're not taking deep breaths. And then that's when we get that stress and tension built up in our body. Another thing you can do is take a nature break. If you have been inside all day, taking a break and going outside and hearing the birds and touching the flowers and smelling the flowers. If you have sunshine where you are, allowing the sun to kiss your skin can just really Really, really relax you and feel so good. Walking or just even doing gentle stretching. One of the wonderful things that Master Daniel taught us was these stretches that were just so easy to do from our chair. He said, one minute every hour, just do a stretch, whether it's rolling your head back and forth to stretch your neck, or you know, raising your arms up and stretching your arms and ⁓ doing some like Footlifts when you're sitting in your chair, doing some twist in your chair, just to get your body moving if you've been sitting too long. So many of us have desk jobs where we're sitting at the computer and we get even more tense and stressed out. Ending your day with like a warm bath and just sitting in the bath and relaxing, maybe lighting a candle and reading a book, putting your phone away, or not even doing anything, just sitting there, even if you had like hot tea or something, can be so, so relaxing and and help with your nervous system and bringing calm back into your body. And then my favorite is snuggling a pet. When you snuggle a pet, whether it's a dog or a cat or even birds, ⁓ whatever kind of pet you have, they can really calm you when you're connected with them. Being connected with animals can really help support our well-being as far as feeling more calm and connected with the lives around us. So those are just a couple of things to Do to calm your body, to calm the chaos in perimenopause, I like to say. This is what we focus on in week five of my program is being able to just really focus on managing our stress because it's so important. They say that 85% of emergency room visits are stress related. Many of us are so stressed out that we don't even realize how stressed out we are. And I can tell you that some of us on this retreat didn't realize how stressed out they were until they started to relax their body. And like for me, I went there in so much pain. I had pain everywhere. Partially probably because I was sick. And I might have gotten sick because my immune system was weaker and I left with way less pain. I still had some pain and I'm gonna work through that. You know, stress shows up in so many ways in our body with illness, injury, pain, not being able to sleep, ⁓ stress eating. We're eating food when we're not really hungry, we're just trying to cope. with the stress that that's happening in our lives. As you can see, managing our stress is super, super, super important. As a recap, I want to encourage you to do not wait till you're completely burned out before you finally slow down. We're not designed to live in a fast-paced environment. We are we are not meant to be in go go go mode. This modern day way of living is not conducive. To our overall health. It really isn't. We have to take breaks. We have to be willing to say no. We have to ask questions like what's what's draining me right now? And what can I give up? And what lights me up? And and how can I do more of that? How can I do more of what lights me up? And what do I need to do to have more quiet and calm in my life? And that's all that I have for you today. I am looking forward to what this new decade of life brings me into the fifties. Someone said to me, You're a half century old. You're gonna be half a century old. I'm like, that sounds so weird. And it's like it just snuck up on me. I anyone who is similar age, it just seems like the forties flew by. And life does fly by. And I'm sure I'll snap my fingers and I'll be sixty. However, I am very, very thankful for my healing journey and for taking the time to support my body in a way that allows me to age well and to age strong. So many of us have goals to live a long life. However, we can live a long life and still be living in a way that can make us miserable, as well as our loved ones miserable. I work with caregivers who are caring for loved ones, who have a lot of medical needs, who can't walk, who need help with changing and bathing and all those things. And it's something that I really want to work towards aging well and aging strong for as long as I can so that I don't have to rely on others to care for me as I get older. And as we start to go through our lives and we're in this new season where we're transitioning into midlife, we need to start thinking about am I supporting my body in a way that when 10 years from now, 20 years from now, I will be strong and healthy. So that I can enjoy these years. So I encourage you to ask yourself, are you taking care of yourself in a way that 10 years from now, 20 years from now, you're going to be healthy and strong and be able to do the things that you want to do? If you're if you're working for retirement and you cannot wait to retire because you want to travel, will you be healthy for it? Are you going to be able to walk long distances? Are you going to be able to lift up your suitcase and put it in the overhead compartment? Those are things we don't really think about until we start to lose the ability to do those things. So I encourage you, what are some things that you can do to age strong and age well? All right. With that, thank you so, so much for being here. If you are loving the podcast, I would love if you can rate it and review it. It allows the podcast to get out to more people who need to hear this message. And I will see you next week.